Saturday, February 11, 2017

Conservative columnist - and at this point perhaps former Republican - Kathleen Parker is off the GOP reservation again and has a column in the Washington Post that I hope becomes predictive of what the Republican Party will face in two years if not sooner if it does not stop being a doormat for Der Trumpenführer. It the Tea Party helped to give the GOP control of Congress in 2012, the growing resistance to the lies, conflicts of interest and attacks on civil rights of Der Trumpenführer could presage disaster for the GOP in 2018. What I have found remarkable is the number of previously apolitical individuals belatedly waking to the reality that one must be politically involved to be a true patriot and to protect American democracy from those who would subvert it. Here are column excerpts:

Good news: In
two years, we’ll have a new president. Bad news: If we make it that long.

My “good” prediction is based on the Law of the Pendulum.
Enough Americans, including most independent voters, will be so ready to shed
Donald Trump and his little shop of horrors that the 2018 midterm elections are
all but certain to be a landslide — no, make that a mudslide — sweep of the
House and Senate. If Republicans took both houses in agroundswellof the people’s rejection of Obamacare, Democrats
will take them back in a tsunami of protest.

Once ensconced, it would take a Democratic majority
approximately 30 seconds to begin impeachment proceedings selecting from an
accumulating pile of lies, overreach and just plain sloppiness. That is,
assuming Trump hasn’t already been shown the exit.

With
luck, and Cabinet-level courage that is not much in evidence, there’s a chance
we won’t have to wait two long years, during which, let’s face it, anything
could happen. In anticipation of circumstances warranting a speedier
presidential replacement, wiser minds addedSection 4to the 25th Amendment, which removes
the president if a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president think it
necessary, i.e., if the president is injured or falls too ill to serve. Or, by
extension, by being so incompetent — or not-quite-right — that he or she poses
a threat to the nation and must be removed immediately and replaced by the vice
president.

Thus far, Trump
and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open
government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade
ofethics violationsranging
from the serious (businessconflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department storefor
dropping his daughter’s fashion line). And, no, it’s not just a father
defending his daughter. It’s the president of the United States bullying a
particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free
enterprise.

To an objective observer, it would seem impossible to defend
the perilous absurdities emanating from the White House . . .

In a hopeful
note, a few Republicans are speaking out, but the list is short.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz recently got a taste of what’s ahead for
Republican incumbents. Facing anunruly crowdat
atown hallmeeting in Utah, the House Oversight Committee
chairman was booed nearly every time he mentioned Trump. Even if many in the
crowd were members of opposition groups, the evening provided a glimpse of the
next two years. From 2010’s tea party to 2018’s resistance, the pendulum barely
had time to pause before beginning itsleftward trek.

While we wait for it to someday find the nation’s center,
where so many wait impatiently, it seems clear that the president, who swore an
oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, has never read it. Nor, apparently, has
he ever even watched a Hollywood rendering of the presidency. A single episode
of “The West Wing” would have taught Trump more about his new job than he seems
to know — or care.

Trump’s childish
and petulant manner, meanwhile, further reinforces long-held concerns that this
man can’t be trusted to lead a dog-and-pony act, much less the nation. Most
worrisome is how long Trump can tolerate the protests, criticisms,
humiliations, rebuttals and defeats — and what price he’ll try to exact from
those who refused to look away.

For obvious reasons, the husband and I are concerned about the growing efforts of Christofascists to push through so-called "religious freedom" laws which would grant homophobes and gay haters carte blanche to discriminate against same sex couples - and many others who fail to subscribe to their fear and hate based beliefs. Under such laws, all that one would need do is claim that one's religious beliefs were in essence offended by same sex couples, cohabitation heterosexual couples and even women on contraception. Here in Virginia, the Republican controlled Virginia General Assembly has passed a license to discriminate bill that fortunately will be vetoed by Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Should Republicans win the governorship in November, such a law could be passed a year from now. But the effort to destroy the rights of same sex married couples isn't confined to Virginia. At the federal level a pernicious anti-LGBT GOP sponsored bill is pending in Congress. Hundreds of bills will likely be introduced in state legislatures this year. I am worried about my own rights, but I am just as concerned about the poisonous impact these special rights for Christofascists would work on younger LGBT Americans who deserve full equality under the law. A column in the Los Angeles Times looks at the coming war on gays. Here are excerpts:

An
executive order leaked to the media last week revealed plans to use the Oval Office
to legalize broad discrimination against the LGBT community in the name of
religion. A draft of the order, first published in The Nation, would
allow﻿ “any organization, including closely
held for-profit corporations” to refuse services to LGBT people, whether in
housing, employment, education or healthcare. In the media uproar that
followed, Donald Trump
said that he would not sign the order at this time.

But the
president did not rule out doing so in the future.

The document is
a reminder that while Trump has claimed he won’t overturn marriage equality in
the White House, he doesn’t have to repeal Obergefell v. Hodges — the Supreme
Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage — to strip the
rights of gay and lesbian couples. The order is specifically designed to allow
anyone who has a religious objection to same-sex marriage to discriminate in
the name of faith — and would prevent the government from taking action against
any individual who acts on those views.

Trump, who said
his personal view on same-sex marriage is “irrelevant,” claimed the case
“was already settled.” . . . What makes this claim rather disingenuous is that
Trump doesn’t need the court system to neuter the protections allowed by
Obergefell v. Hodges, which offer the full legal rights of marriage to all
couples.

Same-sex
partners may get to keep their marriages under the Trump administration, but
those unions will mean little if the federal government erodes the rights and
benefits afforded to that status.

In essence, the
leaked document is an executive version of the First Amendment Defense Act — or
HR 2802 — a national version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act laws
introduced in states like Indiana and Louisiana.

The bill — which
also could be used to fire a gay employee for having a picture of his legally
wedded partner on his desk, or to deny housing to a lesbian couple — will be
debated by Congress later this year. On his campaign website, Trump vowed to
sign it.

Trump’s Supreme
Court pick, Neil Gorsuch,
would appear to confirm the administration’s commitment to so-called religious
liberty over the rights of same-sex couples.

It
remains to be seen how a SCOTUS with Gorsuch on the bench would rule if many of
the central tenets of marriage equality — the equal protection of same-sex
couples under the law — are disputed by religious liberty advocates.

The impending
challenges to same-sex marriage, though, may take place sooner rather than
later.The Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this year on a case out
of Houston, a trial that will decide whether same-sex couples in the Lone Star
State are entitled to the same marriage benefits as heterosexual couples. Although the court passed on it in September,
the case has been a favorite of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who repeatedly lobbied
for the judges to reconsider hearing it. Patrick, who famously suggested that
the LGBT victims of the Pulse massacre deserved to be murdered, served as
Trump’s campaign chairman in Texas.

Justice John
Devine, the most far-right member of the Texas Supreme Court, already has
stated his opposition to providing spousal benefits to same-sex couples, which
he believes are not guaranteed under existing law.

Over 200 bills
targeting the rights of the community were heard by state legislatures last
year, a figure that more than doubled over the prior year. A majority of these
cases were over the very religious objections that will take center stage this
year.

The LGBT
community would appear to have won an important victory with Trump’s momentary
decision to put his executive order on hold — after many claimed it was already
a done deal. But be warned: The war against same-sex marriage is just getting
started.

Will "friends" who voted for Trump raise their voices and condemn such efforts to harm LGBT Americans? I am not holding my breath. Like Germans during the early 1930's, since they are not directly impacted, I expect most will do nothing. Be afraid.

Coal producing areas of the country, including the increasing backward Southwest Virginia, embraced Der Trumpenführer and his lies about the "war on coal" for many reasons, not the least of which was the desire of voters to return to "the god old days" in the coal industry. Never mind that (i) there was no "war on coal" and (ii) domestic and global demand for coal is headed in a downward spiral never to return to past levels. Rather than admit economic reality and to face the task of accepting change - and modern thinking - it was far easier to embrace Trump/GOP lies. Wanting something to be true, however, doesn't make it true as a piece in Think Progress underscores. These fantasy embracing voters are going to be most disappointed and Democrats need to find a way to turn their disappointment against the Republicans who played them for fools. Here are article highlights:

Bloomberg
New Energy Finance (BNEF) has a message for the new president: You
are not going to bring coal back.

Donald Trump won the presidency with claims that he is a
brilliant businessman who will create jobs. He railed against a political “war on coal” supposedly waged by President
Obama, one Trump claimed was “killing American jobs.” On his first day in
office, Trump deleted all the climate change references on the White House
website, replacing it with an “energy plan” that asserts he is “committed to… reviving America’s coal industry.”

In a new analysis, leading independent energy
experts at BNEF dismantle these claims. “Whatever President Trump may say, U.S.
coal’s main problem has been cheap natural gas and renewable power, not a
politically driven war on coal,’”explain BNEF chair Michael Liebreich and
chief editor Angus McCrone. Therefore “it will continue being pushed out of the
generating mix.”

They note global electricity demand has grown much less than
expected (thanks in part to energy efficiency). . . . .
In a world of flat demand, the electricity market is a ruthless game of
musical chairs — where the slowest and most unwieldy power sources keep losing
their seat.

Coal power is just too costly and inflexible, explains BNEF:
“Super-low-cost renewable power — what we are now calling ‘base-cost renewables’ — is
going to force a revolution in the way power grids are designed, and the way
they are regulated.”

When
you add the revolution in cheap fracked gas — which Trump has pledged to double
down on — it’s no surprise the country shut down over 40 gigawatts of
coal-fired power stations since 2000. “These will not reopen whatever anything
President Trump does,” explains BNEF, “nor do we see much appetite among
investors for ploughing money into U.S. coal extraction — stranded asset risk
will trump rhetoric.”

[C]oal’s
woes are not merely being driven by a collapse in the economic case here. It’s
also being driven by a collapse in the export market, as countries from Europe
to Asia also move away from coal because of its economic and human cost. Coal
pollution is killing people and destroying the climate.

So Trump won’t be bringing back the domestic coal industry.
And even if he could, he can’t bring back the jobs because it’s the coal
industry itself that wiped out most of those jobs through productivity gains
from “strip mines and machinery,” as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman
explained in 2014.

The fact is clean energy jobs are the only major new source of sustainable
high-wage employment in the coming decades. Tragically, Trump’s misguided
policies — his war on clean energy — mean the U.S. may
not benefit from this exploding $50-trillion industry.

Former blogger Andrew Sullivan - who I had the opportunity meet several years ago - is back with a piece in New York Magazine which lays out his critical, and in my view, accurate summation of the nightmare currently gripping America in the person of Der Trumpenführer. I don't always agree with Sullivan - especially on matters of religion and Catholicism - but he sums up matters well in his latest "conversation." The bottom line is that the current occupant of the White House is mentally ill and this reality is what is unsettling if not down right frightening to the major it of Americans who did not and never will support the current president and all of the toxicity that he represents. Here are some highlights:

I want to start with Trump’s lies. It’s now a commonplace that Trump
and his underlings tell whoppers. Fact-checkers have never had it so good. But
all politicians lie. Bill Clinton could barely go a day without some shading or
parsing of the truth. Richard Nixon was famously tricky. But all the
traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth —
even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a shared reality and bowed to
it. They acknowledged the need for a common set of facts in order for a liberal
democracy to function at all. Trump’s lies are different. They are direct
refutations of reality — and their propagation and repetition is about
enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They are
attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-faced
lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their
subjects into submission. That first press conference when Sean Spicer was sent
out to lie and fulminate to the press about the inauguration crowd reminded me
of some Soviet apparatchik having his loyalty tested to see if he could repeat
in public what he knew to be false. It was comical, but also faintly chilling.

What do I mean by denial of empirical reality? Take one of
the most recent. On Wednesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal related the news that
Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the long-vacant Supreme Court seat, had
told him that the president’s unprecedented, personal attacks on federal judges
were “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” Within half an hour, this was
confirmed by Gorsuch’s White House–appointed spokesman, who was present for the
conversation. CNN also reported that Senator
Ben Sasse had heard Gorsuch say exactly the same thing, with feeling, as did
former senator Kelly Ayotte.

The president nonetheless insisted twice yesterday that Blumenthal had
misrepresented his conversation with Gorsuch — first in an early morning tweet and then, once
again, yesterday afternoon, in front of the television cameras. To add to the
insanity, he also tweeted that in a
morning interview, Chris Cuomo had never challenged Blumenthal on his lies
about his service in Vietnam — when the tape clearly shows it
was the first thing Cuomo brought up.

What are we supposed to do with this? How are we to respond
to a president who in the same week declared that the
“murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 45 to 47 years,” when,
of course, despite some recent, troubling spikes in cities, it’s nationally near a low not seen
since the late 1960s, and half what it was in 1980. What are we supposed to do
when a president says that two people were shot dead in Chicago during
President Obama’s farewell address — when this is directly contradicted by the
Chicago police? None of this, moreover, is ever corrected. No error is ever
admitted. Any lie is usually doubled down by another lie — along with an ad
hominem attack.

Here is what we are supposed to do: rebut every single lie.
Insist moreover that each lie is retracted — and journalists in press
conferences should back up their colleagues with repeated follow-ups if Spicer
tries to duck the plain truth. Do not allow them to move on to another
question. Interviews with the president himself should not leave a lie alone;
the interviewer should press and press and press until the lie is conceded. The
press must not be afraid of even calling the president a liar to his face if he
persists. This requires no particular courage. I think, in contrast, of those
dissidents whose critical insistence on simple truth in plain language kept
reality alive in the Kafkaesque world of totalitarianism. As the Polish
dissident Adam Michnik once said: “In the life of every honorable man comes a
difficult moment … when the simple statement that this is black and that is
white requires paying a high price.” The price Michnik paid was years in
prison. American journalists cannot risk a little access or a nasty tweet for
the same essential civic duty?

Then there is the obvious question of the president’s
mental and psychological health. I know we’re not supposed to bring this up —
but it is staring us brutally in the face. I keep asking myself this simple
question: If you came across someone in your everyday life who repeatedly said
fantastically and demonstrably untrue things, what would you think of him? If
you showed up at a neighbor’s, say, and your host showed you his newly painted
living room, which was a deep blue, and then insisted repeatedly — manically —
that it was a lovely shade of scarlet, what would your reaction be? If he then
dragged out a member of his family and insisted she repeat this obvious untruth
in front of you, how would you respond? If the next time you dropped by, he was
still raving about his gorgeous new red walls, what would you think? Here’s
what I’d think: This man is off his rocker. He’s deranged; he’s bizarrely
living in an alternative universe; he’s delusional. If he kept this up, at some
point you’d excuse yourself and edge slowly out of the room and the house and
never return. You’d warn your other neighbors. You’d keep your distance. If you
saw him, you’d be polite but keep your distance.

I think this is a fundamental reason why so many of us have
been so unsettled, anxious, and near panic these past few months. It is not so
much this president’s agenda. That always changes from administration to
administration. It is that when the linchpin of an entire country is literally
delusional, clinically deceptive, and responds to any attempt to correct the
record with rage and vengeance, everyone is always on edge.

There is no anchor any more. At the core of the
administration of the most powerful country on earth, there is, instead,
madness.

Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin - although, I suspect Der Trumpenführer would describe her as an enemy of American security - continues on her quest to atone for years of apologizing from GOP misrule and misconduct that set the stage for the 2016 election results. In a column she looks at the stinging rebuke dealt to the Trump/Pence regime by the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Not only did the court refuse to reverse the stay of Der Trumpenführer's Muslim ban, but it did so in strong language and made it clear that the president is not above judicial review or Constitutional limits. Rubin's column looks at not only the incompetence of the regime but the dangerous mindset of Der Trumpenführer who views himself above the law. Here are column excerpts:

A
federal appeals court panel has maintained the freeze on President Trump’s
controversial immigration order, meaning previously barred refugees and citizens
from seven Muslim-majority countries can continue entering the United States.

In
a unanimous, 29-page opinion, three judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 9th Circuit flatly rejected the government’s argument that the suspension
of the order should be lifted immediately for national security reasons and
forcefully asserted their ability to serve as a check on the president’s power.

The opinion tells us much about the hubris and sheer
incompetence of the new administration as the court rebuked it at every
turn, pointing to errors in law and lawyering.

The administration made the argument that the case was not
even reviewable, despite ample precedent from the George W. Bush years. In its
most memorable line of the opinion the judges held, “There is no precedent to
support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental
structure of our constitutional democracy.” .
. . . Given the president’s recent public hectoring and threats to hold
the court responsible for any terror attacks if it upheld the lower court’s
order, the court had every reason to eviscerate the claim of what amounts to
executive supremacy.

The executive
order — drafted, we are told, during the campaign — was so sweeping and
egregiously dismissive of constitutional niceties that the court made easy work
of it. The most fatal flaw was the inclusion of green card holders, which the
Department of Homeland Security apparently warned the White House not to
include. This gave the court a significant group of people with due process
rights who would be subject to presidential whim without any procedural
recourse. Both green card holders here in the U.S. and those seeking to come
back into the country were affected.

The court found that “the States have
offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to
implement a ‘Muslim ban.'” On this, Trump dug his own legal grave.

In then weighing the “irreparable injury” that might be
done by staying the ban, the court observed that the administration provided
“no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has
perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.” In biting criticism the
court found, “Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the
Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review
its decision at all.” This too was a complete failure of lawyering.

The White House
seemed to believe that issuing an executive order was no different than putting
out a campaign white paper. The court to its credited reminded the
administration that presidents have ample, but not unlimited power.
Constitutional restraints still apply to the president, even on national
security.

A more rational president who actually believed national
security was at risk would heed the court’s directions, issue a narrower ban
that would pass muster and roll that out with proper coordination. But Trump
must “win” and can never accept error — even if his aides deserve some of the
blame. He’ll persist, he says, to the Supreme Court (or
perhaps first to an en banc review). If he truly believes that
we are in peril, it is he who is endangering the country by choosing to leave
the country with no travel ban whatsoever. And of course, with regard to real
risks — radicalized Americans, lone wolves, etc. — the president is doing
nothing, thereby leaving the country no safer than it was under his predecessor.

This is a humiliating defeat for the White House, revealing
just how amateurish the president and his advisers are. The frightful part is
that if they cannot handle a simple executive order, what makes
anyone think they can handle far more difficult challenges?

Thankfully, a discussion of Trump/Pence collusion with Russia is back in the news and perhaps the media will get back on the scent of finding out (i) how much the Trump campaign interacted with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election, and (ii) what dirt/blackmail materials Putin has on Trump or secret business dealings Trump has in Russia. The vehicle of this renewed interest? Nutcase national
security adviser Michael Flynn who, despite repeated denials, did in fact talk to Russia before Trump took office about reducing sanctions against Russia. If there is one constant theme with the Trump/Pence regime, it is constant lying. Trump's dishonesty should surprise no one. The same holds for Pence, a dyed in the wool Christofascist. From 20 years of monitoring Christofascists, no group in America lies more often or more consistently. The Washington Post looks at the revelations. Here are highlights:

National
security adviser Michael Flynn privately discussed U.S. sanctions against
Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month
before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump
officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak
were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and
potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from
sanctions that were being imposed by theObama administration in late Decemberto punish Russia for its alleged
interference in the 2016 election.

Flynn on Wednesday denied that he had discussed sanctions
with Kislyak. Asked in an interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said,
“No.”

Officials
said this week that the FBI is continuing to examineFlynn’s communications with Kislyak. Several officials emphasized that while sanctions were
discussed, they did not see evidence that Flynn had an intent to convey an
explicit promise to take action after the inauguration.The talks were
part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the
Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said. In a
recent interview, Kislyak confirmed that he had communicated with Flynn by text
message, by phone and in person, but declined to say whether they had discussed
sanctions.

The emerging details contradict public statements by incoming
senior administration officials including Mike Pence, then the vice
president-elect. They acknowledged only a handful of text messages and calls
exchanged between Flynn and Kislyak late last year and denied that either ever
raised the subject of sanctions.

“They
did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel
diplomats or impose censure against Russia,”Pence said in an interview with CBS Newslast month, noting that he had spoken
with Flynn about the matter. Pence also made a more sweeping assertion, saying
there had been no contact between members of Trump’s team and Russia during the
campaign.Neither of those
assertions is consistent with the fuller account of Flynn’s contacts with
Kislyak provided by officials who had access to reports from U.S. intelligence
and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of
Russian diplomats. Nine current and former officials, who were in senior
positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls, spoke on the condition
of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

All of those officials said ­Flynn’s references to the
election-related sanctions were explicit. Two of those officials went further,
saying that Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed
by President Barack Obama, making clear that the two sides would be in position
to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president.

“Kislyak was left with the impression that the sanctions
would be revisited at a later time,” said a former official.

Kislyak
said that he had been in contact with Flynn since before the election, but
declined to answer questions about the subjects they discussed. Kislyak is known
for his assiduous cultivation of high-level officials in Washington and was
seated in the front row of then-GOP candidate Trump’s first major foreign
policy speech in April of last year. The ambassador would not discuss the
origin of his relationship with Flynn.Putin’s muted
response — which took White House officials by surprise — raised some
officials’ suspicions that Moscow may have been promised a reprieve, and
triggered a search by U.S. spy agencies for clues.

“Something happened in those 24 hours” between Obama’s
announcement and Putin’s response, a former senior U.S. official said.
Officials began poring over intelligence reports, intercepted communications
and diplomatic cables, and saw evidence that Flynn and Kislyak had communicated
by text and telephone around the time of the announcement.When Pence faced
questions on television that weekend, he said “those conversations that
happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel
diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”

Current and former U.S. officials said that assertion was not
true.

Like Trump, Flynn has shown an affinity for Russia that is at
odds with the views of most of his military and intelligence peers.

U.S.
intelligence agencies say they have tied the GRU to Russia’s theft of troves of
email messages from Democratic Party computer networks and accuse Moscow of
then delivering those materials to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which
published them in phases during the campaign to hurt Hillary Clinton, Trump’s
Democratic rival.

My gut continues to tell me that we are looking at likely acts of treason. I just hope they can be exposed and that the guilty parties, including Trump, Pence and their henchmen get prosecuted, convicted and sentenced accordingly.

Thursday, February 09, 2017

A new PPP Poll ought to be sending alarm bells off among Congressional Republicans, not to mention among Der Trumpenführer's inner circle. Taken just two (2) weeks after Trump's inauguration, the poll results are damning with in many instances a majority of Americans being firmly against Trump's polices and his conduct. By a very wide margin, Americans want Der Trumpenführer to obey the rulings of the federal courts even as childish brat like tweets continue to spew from The Orange One. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that except within the ranks of Trump supporters, the opposition to Trump - and by extension Congressional Republicans - is growing. Here are highlights from the poll findings:

Less than 2 weeks into Donald
Trump's tenure as President, 40% of
voters already want to impeach him. That's up from 35% of voters who wanted to
impeach him a week ago.

Beyond a significant percentage of
voters already thinking that Trump should be removed from office, it hasn't
taken long for voters to miss the good old days of Barack Obama...52% say
they'd rather Obama was President, to only 43% who are glad Trump is.Why so much unhappiness with Trump?
Voters think basically everything he's doing is wrong:-Overall voters are pretty evenly
split on Trump's executive order on immigration from last week, with 47%
supporting it to 49% who are opposed. But when you get beyond the overall package,
the pieces of the executive order become more clearly unpopular. 52% of voters
think that the order was intended to be a Muslim
ban, to only 41% who don't think that was the intent. And the idea of a Muslim
ban is extremely unpopular with the American people- only 26% are in favor of it, to 65% who are against
it. . . . Finally voters see a basic competence issue with Trump's handling of
the executive order- only 39% of voters think it was well executed, to 55% who
believe it was poorly executed.

-It hasn't taken long for voters to
develop a pretty dim view of Trump advisor Steve Bannon, and become wary of the
extent to which he's being given power within the administration. Only 19% of
voters see Bannon favorably, to 40% who have a negative opinion of him. Only 34%
of voters approve of his being given a seat on the principals committee of the National
Security Council, to 44% who are opposed to that. What's particularly telling
is that only 19% of voters think Bannon belongs in that seat on the
National Security Council more than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the Director of National Intelligence, to 59%
who believe those folks are more deserving of that place at the table. Even Trump
voters think he's gone too far on that front- by a 40/35 margin they think the
more traditional members should have that position rather than Bannon.-Very few voters go along with Trump
when it comes to his voter fraud paranoia. Only 26% of voters think millions of people
voted illegally in the 2016 Presidential election, to 55% who believe that's
not a real thing. This is another issue where even a significant number of Trump
voters become wary of his claim- 47% believe it but 27% don't and another 26%
aren't sure. It's been unusual to find things where a majority of Trump's
voters don't go along with him.-Obamacare continues to become more
popular the more talk there is about repealing it. 46% of voters now say they support
it to just 41% who are opposed. And only 33% of voters think the best course of action is for
Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act and start over, to 62% who think it would be better
to keep it and fix the parts that need fixing.

Another aspect of Trump's unpopularity is that
he's losing all of his fights. In the last week he's gone on the attack on
Twitter against John McCain, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN and in each case we find voters siding
with Trump's adversary:-By a 51/37 spread voters say John
McCain has more credibility than Trump.-By a 52/41 spread voters say the
Washington Post has more credibility thanTrump.-By a 51/42 spread voters say the
New York Times has more credibility thanTrump.-By a 50/42 spread voters say CNN has
more credibility than Trump.-Only 13% of voters approve of the
job Congress is doing, to 68% who disapprove. Paul Ryan has a 35/43 approval rating, and
Mitch McConnell's is 17/55. Democrats
lead the generic Congressional ballot 45/42.

Going back to Obamacare, one of my
favorite poll result is this:

Q16 Which of the following would you
most like to see the Congress do about the Affordable Care Act, given the choices of keeping
what works and fixing what doesn’t, or repealing it and starting over with a new healthcare
law?62% Would most like the Congress to
keep what works in the Affordable Care Act and fix what doesn’t33% Would most like the Congress to
repeal the Affordable Care Act and start over with a newhealthcare law5% Not sure

As with Republicans at the national level, the Virginia Republican Party is forever prostituting itself to Christofascists - led in Virginia by The Family Foundation, a hate group in all but formal designation - and seeking to legalize anti-LGBT discrimination. True, Bob Marshall's "bath room bill" was killed by Republicans in committee, but that was more over concern for the economic backlash that might occur given the experience of neighboring North Carolina. But true to form, a falsely named and unnecessary "religious freedom" bill has passed the Virginia General Assembly on a party line vote that would allow legalized discrimination against LGBT Virginians. Thankfully, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vowed to veto the bill. GayRVA has details. Here are highlights:

Virginia Gov.
Terry McAuliffe vowed to veto any bill that discriminates against LGBTQ people
at a reception hosted Tuesday night by Equality Virginia.

McAuliffe has
vetoed 71 bills during his two years as governor, none of which have been
overturned.

“It’s not about
doing the most vetoes of any governor in Virginia history,” McAuliffe said.
“We’re stopping people from doing things that discriminate against people’s
basic rights.”

The legislation
was sponsored by Sen. Charles Carrico, R-Grayson. Supporters describe it as a
“religious freedom” bill, saying it would protect people and organizations that
oppose same-sex marriages. However, Democrats and advocates say the measure
would give people and organizations the right to discriminate against gay and
lesbian couples.

“Discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity has absolutely no place
in the commonwealth, and I am disappointed that a Republican-majority in the
Senate approved SB 1324 today,” said Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who is seeking the
Democratic nomination for governor this year.

“I recently took
a seven-city tour across the commonwealth that ended in Salem, where I was
proud to welcome the NCAA soccer tournament. That championship was relocated
from North Carolina, as was the NBA All-Star game and major businesses. To be
economically competitive, we have to be open and welcoming to all. I will
continue to advocate for equality for all.”

“It’s
not just about the rare lawsuit,” Levine said. “It’s about having people be
confident enough that if they do choose to come out, they’re not going to be
kicked out in the street, they’re not going to lose their employment, they’re
not going to lose their job.”

“The
only way we’re going to get fair treatment, gay and lesbian people, is to let
the people speak out. And it’s not going to be through this gerrymandering
system that we have here. The system is rigged – it truly is,” Sickles said.

Gerrymandering has allowed Republicans to maintain a disproportionate number of seats in the General Assembly and has allowed backward rural areas to have far too much say in public policy in Virginia. Both gerrymandering and LGBT discrimination need to end.

As I have noted before on this blog, I lived in the Mobile, Alabama area from 1977 to 1981. Back in that time period, Jeff Sessions was Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and was considered reactionary even by many wealthy conservatives. Things did not get better with time with Sessions. While I was still living in Mobile, a 19 year old black man
named Michael Donaldwas murdered inwhat was the last recordedlynchingin
the United States.SeveralKu Klux Klan(KKK)
members beat and killed Michael Donald, and hanged his body from a tree. Session's office did not prosecute the case,
but both men were arrested and convicted.Subsequently, due to the efforts of Thomas
Figures, the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Mobile, FBI agent James Bodman, and
Michael Figures, a state senator and civil rights activist, the killers
were ultimately arrested over two and a half years after the murder and were
prosecuted, with one receiving the death penalty.After dropping the ball on the Donald case, Sessions
prosecuted three black community organizers in theBlack belt of Alabama, includingMartin Luther King Jr.'s former aideAlbert Turner, forvoter fraud, alleging tampering with 14 absentee ballots. The
prosecution stirred charges of selective prosecution of black voter
registration. The defendants, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted of all
charges by a jury.

Fast forward to this week and hearings on the nomination of Sessions to the office of Attorney General of the United States are taking place (sadly, Senate Republicans confirmed him). During the hearings Senator Elizabeth Warren sought to read into the Senate record a 1986 letter written by Coretta Scott King (see the image above) who, based on the facts recited above, held Sessions in low regard. Mitch McConnell, among the most despicable and hypocrisy filled members of the Senate invoked an arcane Senate rule to silence Warren. A piece in Slate makes the case that McConnell - who clearly hates Warren - was most motivated by his desire to muzzle the words of Coretta Scott King. Here are article highlights:

By
design, the U.S. Senate is a deliberative body in which members have every
opportunity to speak their minds on the subject at hand. There are exceptions
tied to decorum: Attack or impugn a colleague and the chamber reserves the
right to strip speaking privileges from the offending member. On Tuesday night, it
did just that to Elizabeth Warren. . . .This
extraordinary step was initiated by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate
majority leader.What
did Elizabeth Warren say? How did she “impugn the motives and conduct” of the
senator from Alabama? She read a letter. Specifically, Warren read from a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott
King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on the subject of
then–federal prosecutor Jeff Sessions, submitted in opposition to his
nomination for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. It
was because of the letter that McConnell sought to silence Warren. And it’s in
revisiting that letter that we can see how McConnell was right to be
shook. Not because King was mistaken, but because her 30-year-old indictment of
Jeff Sessions is now an indictment of the entire Republican Party.In
Sessions, King saw a throwback to the Jim Crow officials who fought to
disenfranchise black Americans throughout the South. “Mr. Sessions has used the
awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black
citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge," wrote
King in her 10-page statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which
ultimately rejected Sessions in a 10–8 vote with two Republicans joining eight
Democrats in voting against Ronald Reagan’s nominee. “Mr. Sessions’ conduct as
U.S. Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his
indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights law, indicates that he
lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.”King went on to describe Sessions’
role in pursuing and prosecuting a trio of black voting rights activists in
Perry County, Alabama:

“Mr. Sessions sought to punish older
black civil rights activists ... who had been key figures in the civil rights
movement in the 1960’s. These were persons who, realizing the potential of the absentee
vote among Blacks, had learned to use the process within the bounds of legality
and had taught others to do the same. The only sin they committed was being too
successful in gaining votes.”

King detailed clear abuses of
authority, from selective prosecution—ignoring allegations of similar behavior
by whites—to pressuring and intimidating witnesses. “Many elderly blacks were
visited multiple times by the FBI who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to
a grand jury in Mobile when they could more easily have testified at a grand
jury twenty miles away in Selma. These voters, and others, have announced they
are now never going to vote again,” King wrote.

For McConnell and his Republican
colleagues, King’s critique of Sessions’ work was a personal attack. He saw
this well-grounded accusation of racism as worse than the actions it described.
And so he called for silence.

Despite
the pivotal role the letter played in Sessions’ confirmation hearing in 1986,
the then-chair of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South
Carolina, never entered it into
the congressional record.Now
that we have the letter, however, we can see how relevant it is not just to
Sessions’ bid for the attorney general’s office but as a judgment on the
Republican Party as a whole.

Wednesday, February 08, 2017

The batshit craziness continues to flow out of the White House with Der Trumpenführer lashing out at retailers that have either stop carrying his daughter's fashion line or relegating it to being relegated to being mixed in with other lines. Meanwhile, the lies continue to flow from the lips of Der Trumpenführer and his minister of propaganda and so-called press secretary. Do Congressional Republicans lift a finger to rein in a seemingly mentally ill head of their party? Of course not. A very lengthy piece in Vox makes the case that Trump cannot become a dictator solely under his own power but rather needs the assistance of Congressional Republicans. Since before Barack Obama assumed the office of president, Congressional Republicans have been derelict in performing their constitutional duties. During Obama's turn, they obstructed the function of the federal government. Now, they are sitting by as Trump wreaks havoc on a daily, if not hourly basis. Here are article highlights:

So why, then,
are we surrounded by articles worrying over America’s descent into fascism or
autocracy? There are two reasons, and Trump is, by far, the less dangerous of
them.

Trump
has shown himself unconcerned with the norms of American democracy. He
routinely proclaims elections rigged, facts false, the media crooked, and his
opponents corrupt. During the campaign, he flouted basic traditions of
transparency and threatened to jail his opponent. His tendencies toward
nepotism, crony capitalism, and vengeance unnerve. His oft-stated admiration
for authoritarians in other countries — including, but not limited to, Vladimir
Putin — speaks to his yearning for power.

The
picture resonates because it combines two forces many sense at work — Trump’s
will to power and the fecklessness of the institutions meant to stop him — into
one future everyone fears: autocracy in America.

[It]
is not an autocracy. It is what we might call a partyocracy — a quasi-strongman
leader empowered only because the independently elected legislators from his
party empower him.

The judiciary,
however, is not the branch of government with the most power or the most
responsibility to curb Trump’s worst instincts. That designation belongs to the
US Congress.

The
president can do little without Congress’s express permission. He cannot raise
money. He cannot declare war. He cannot even staff his government. If Congress,
tomorrow, wanted to compel Trump to release his tax returns, they could. If
Congress, tomorrow, wanted to impeach Trump unless he agreed to turn his assets
over to a blind trust, they could. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to take
Trump’s power to choose who can and cannot enter the country, they could. As [David]
Frum writes, “Congress can protect the American system from an overbearing
president.” He just thinks they won’t.

But I want to
make the argument that there is nothing inevitable about that: it is not the
system envisioned by the Constitution and it is not the system we would have if
voters took Congress’s enormous power seriously and were as interested in who
ran it as in who ran the presidency.

And I
want to shift the locus of responsibility a bit: if Trump builds an autocracy,
his congressional enablers will, if anything, be more responsible than him.
After all, in amassing power and breaking troublesome norms, Trump will be
doing what the Founders expected. But in letting any president do that,
Congress will be violating the role they were built to play. We need to stop
talking so much about what Trump will do and begin speaking in terms of what
Congress lets him do.

It is, at this
point, expected that they will confirm Trump’s unqualified nominees, ignore his
obvious conflicts of interest, overlook his dangerous comments, and rationalize
his worst behavior.

That
expectation — and the cowardice it permits — is the real danger to American
democracy.

These are not
normal times. Congressional Republicans find themselves, or at least feel
themselves, yoked to Donald Trump — an abnormal president who hijacked their
primary system and mounted a hostile takeover of their party. Trump now holds
them hostage: Their legislation requires his signature, their reelection
requires his popularity, and he is willing to withhold both.

And so
the institution meant to check the president now finds itself protecting him.

Trump does not,
himself, have the power to reinforce his rule with a web of corruption. Trump
does not, himself, have the power to launch fraudulent investigations of nonexistent
voter fraud and then use the results to disenfranchise voters. Trump does not,
himself, have the power to confirm his Cabinet while refusing to put his assets
into a blind trust. In these cases, and others, Trump’s power exists at the
pleasure of Congress. He can only do what they let him do.

That
Congress is not using its power is Congress’s fault, not Trump’s. Whatever
danger Trump poses to the system is their fault as much or more than his — it
is their job, after all, to check an out-of-control president.

To
put it differently, Trump deserves a bit less attention, and Rep. Jason
Chaffetz deserves a lot more. . . . So here, then, is Chaffetz after the 2016
election: planning investigations into those raising the alarm over Trump’s
conflicts of interest, rather than actually investigating Trump’s conflicts of
interest.

There are
obvious reasons for this. The danger for a House Republican in investigating
Trump is that he’ll find something, and that something will be used by
Democrats to win back Congress and, ultimately, the White House. . . . It is Chaffetz’s job, more than it is
anyone else’s, to hold Trump accountable, to demand that he govern in a
transparent and ethical manner. And he has the power to do it. He can subpoena
administration officials and Trump’s business associates. He can make sure the
media and the public have much of the information Trump refuses to release, and
he can make it costly for Trump to abandon longstanding norms around
transparency, divestment, and governance. The American political system is
prepared for the sort of challenge Trump represents, and there are corrective
powers in place.

But
the wielder of those corrective powers must want to use them. And Chaffetz
doesn’t. His identity as a Republican supersedes his identity as chair of the
House Oversight Committee, or even as congressman from Utah’s third district.

This,
and not Trump, is what poses a threat to American democracy. Here, in
miniature, you can see the problem we face: not a president who can’t be
checked, but a president whose co-partisans don’t want to check him.

Partyocracy,
not autocracy, is the danger. It is the danger now, and it is the danger in the
future, when the presidency might be held by a would-be strongman smoother and
cleverer than Trump.

The
problem America faces right now isn’t what Donald Trump will do, but what
Republicans in Congress will let him do. That is an unintuitive way to think in
a polity that obsesses over the president’s every tweet but barely shows up to
vote in midterm elections. But it’s the reality.

[I]f Republicans
in Congress abandon their constitutional role to protect their partisan
interests, then they must be held no less accountable than Trump.

There
is much talk of the resistance to the Trump administration, and many protests
happening outside the White House. But it is in Congress members’ districts —
at their town halls, in their offices, at their coffee shops — where this fight
will be won or lost.

But for now, the
crucial question — the question on which much of American democracy hinges — is
not what Trump does. It is what Congress does. The danger posed by Trump is one
that America’s political system is built to protect against. But the officials
charged with its protection need to take their role seriously.

In the
end, it is as simple as this: The way to stop an autocracy is to have Congress
do its damn job.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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